Research Advisor
Adrian Ildefonso
Assistant Professor of Intelligent Systems Engineering
Dr. Adrian Ildefonso is an Assistant Professor of Intelligent Systems Engineering at Indiana University Bloomington. He received a B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez in 2014 and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2017 and 2020, respectively. Before joining Indiana University, he was a research engineer and a Jerome and Isabella Karle Fellow at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., where he developed laser-based techniques to emulate radiation effects in microelectronic devices.
Dr. Ildefonso’s research focuses on radiation effects and reliability in advanced microelectronic and photonic systems, with an emphasis on laser-based single-event testing, radiation-hardness assurance, and predictive modeling of device behavior in extreme environments. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and received several best paper awards. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and the recipient of the 2024 Radiation Effects Early Achievement Award from the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society for contributions to the study of pulsed lasers for single-event effects testing.
Ph.D. Students
John Lazenby IV
Graduate Research Assistant
John is a Ph.D. Student of Intelligent Systems Engineering at IU. He joined the team in 2025 and has been organizing radiation test campaigns for programmable photonic switches. His research interests include the reliability of programmable photonic circuits and materials to ionizing and non-ionizing effects.
John Barney
Graduate Research Assistant (Co-Advised)
PI: D. Loveless
John Barney is a Ph.D. candidate in Intelligent Systems Engineering at IU and a research assistant under the advisement of Dr. Daniel Loveless. John’s research focuses on understanding how radiation-induced charge from energetic ions is collected in semiconductor devices, how this charge forms single-event transients (SETs), and how those transients propagate through circuits to produce circuit-level effects.
Undergraduate Students
Louis V. Buonaiuto
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Louis V. Buonaiuto is a computer engineering undergraduate researcher at the HERMES Lab at Indiana University. He joined the lab in Fall of 2025 and has worked on automating IV measurements of semiconductor devices using Python to interface with instruments. He is also studying the effects of lasers on audio amplifier performance. His research interests include laser technology and semiconductor physics.
Mahmoud Al-Nasser
Research Assistant
Mahmoud Al-Nasser is a research assistant in the HERMES lab at Indiana University. He recently graduated with a Computer Science bachelor’s degree from Indiana University. He joined the lab in March 2025 and is currently working on the simulation and modeling of laser-induced radiation effects. His work focuses on evaluating scanning strategies and bit-flip detection for hardware reliability. His research interests include radiation effects, microelectronics reliability, and FPGA/ASIC design.
Emma Day
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Emma Day is an undergraduate research assistant in the HERMES Lab, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Intelligent Systems Engineering at Indiana University, Bloomington. She joined the lab in Fall 2025 and is currently developing a Gaussian laser beam profiler capable of measuring the beam’s shape at multiple locations along its path of propagation. Her research interests include automated laser profiling and beam characterization techniques, instrument control, and image processing.
Alumni
Undergraduate Students
| Name | Duration | Project |
| Connor Collier | Summer 2025 (IU CREATE REU) | Variable laser attenuator |
| Ryan Jacobson | Fall 2025 | Laser energy calibration setup |